Andrea Zachrich

Dr. Fareed Zakaria is the host of CNN’s show GPS, a columnist for the Washington Post, a contributing editor for The Atlantic, and a New York Times bestselling author of three books. Born in India, he immigrated to the United States to attend university and went on to receive his Bachelor’s of Arts from Yale and a PhD degree in Philosophy of Government from Harvard. Dr. Zakaria was invited to UCLA to give the annual Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture in Journalism and International Relations. He was kind enough to sit down with members of The Generation before he gave the lecture and answer our questions about immigration, democracy, and journalism with patience, insight, and humor.

Immigration:

The Generation’s first question for Dr. Zakaria concerned the relationship between immigration and populism that he has explained in one of his past articles for the Washington Post, and why this issue is so potent at this particular moment. Zakaria noted a visible rise of “right wing populism” in countries that are both lagging behind economically and those that are succeeding. Yet regardless of their economic prospects, “the one common trait you see is immigration.” What’s to blame for the backlash? Zakaria says its the forces of globalized capitalism.

“Globalized capitalism is a very dynamic but destructive force. We always think about the upside, the new products, the new companies, but we forget about the downside, the destruction of companies and communities. Now that’s what gives [globalized capitalism] its power, its dynamism, its productivity. But there’s a real downside…. And in that, when you go through a particularly accelerated phase of it, which I think we’ve been going through ever since the end of the Cold War, I think it’s easy to accept the globalization of goods, of services, of capital, these are all abstractions. But the globalization of people, that’s very hard.”

In addition, Zakaria observes, paradoxically, that places without many immigrants have the strongest reaction to immigration.

“Where is it that you find this rhetoric about [Donald Trump’s proposed border] wall has played the best? Its in rural Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan. These are not places that have vast numbers of immigrants. The places that have immigrants- New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, the Bay Area – they’re fine, because it’s much easier to fear the unknown, the image, the stories, the scare tactics.”

The combination of the globalization of people and the fear of the unknown person are the causes of this current rise in populism worldwide. Furthermore, Zakaria finds political leadership to be at fault for the populism rearing its head today as opposed to in the past.

“At the end of the day, political leadership matters. You have had one party, and within one party, one person, who systematically drummed up this fear. And of course he had something to play with, there was a great deal to play with in terms of the underlying anxiety. But that’s what leadership does for better or for worse. It takes that raw material and then it can fashion it as it wishes. And it’s always easier to scare people. It’s always much easier to scare people than to give them hope.”

Dr. Zakaria is, of course, referring to President Donald Trump’s xenophobic rhetoric. Throughout his candidacy and presidency, Trump has spewed rhetoric almost daily about building a wall on the Mexican-American border and implementing a ban on Muslim travel to the U.S. According to Zakaria these campaign promises exacerbated fears of immigration and helped lead to the rise populism in the United States.

We also asked Dr. Zakaria about struggles of assimilation in Europe and the United States for new immigrants. He discussed the differences between the two regions, and how he believes it to be much easier for immigrants to assimilate into American society, calling it an “assimilation machine”, and noting that “as an immigrant I can tell you the great challenge for American immigrants, for me with my kids, is to make them retain some small element of the old culture. That is the biggest challenge.” This is in contrast to Europe, where there is “a certain degree of multicultural relativism that said everyone can just live their own lives and practice their own practices even if they were very illiberal practices” and that Europeans have “tended to neglect the issue [of immigration]”. He goes on to make the point that in the U.S every immigrant is trying to assimilate, that every immigrant in the U.S wants themselves and their children to speak English as there are huge economic incentives for doing so. As opposed to the xenophobic rhetoric of President Trump, who often portrays immigrants as the “other,” and as foreigners seeking to come into the country bringing elements of the old culture here, Zakaria paints a different picture of immigrants. He describes immigrants not as people who wish to come to the U.S and retain an “other-ness” but as people who wish to become American and assimilate into the country’s culture.

Democracy:

In the face of numerous events at UCLA that have been canceled or disrupted by student protestors, The Daily Bruin reporter Megan Daley asked Dr. Zakaria about the excessive “political correctness” that is often at fault for such disruptions on university campuses across the country. These students subscribe to a type of individual identity politics that Zakaria finds detrimental to free speech. Last year, for example, Bruin Republicans had planned on hosting conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, but canceled the event amid fears of protests similar to those that occured at UC Berkeley and UC Davis that turned violent and forced the event’s cancellation.

In relation to these events on our campus and others, Zakaria spoke about how excessive political correctness can be detrimental to the university’s goal of creating an environment for discussion and academic discourse. While acknowledging that he understood the impulses of historically marginalized groups who “feel that they want to be full participants, that they want to have their voices heard, [that] they don’t want to be demeaned or marginalized again, or excluded again,” Zakaria argued that the instinct to shut out and not listen to speech they find offensive is harmful and might actually make that speech more attractive to people who see this type of inflammatory speech as “ideas that nobody wants to hear”. He argues that the problem with completely shutting down these ideas “is that the nature of an intellectual arena has to be one that allows open, unfettered conversation, discussion, and debate. And the best answer to bad ideas are good ideas, not to shut down those ideas, to not hear them”. He then broadened his explanation of what he believed to be a systematic problem with the way politics are framed on college campuses.

“People want politics to be primarily about their experience, their identity rather than a shared experience and a common identity. Because if it becomes all about your identity, first of all it becomes impossible to have a common, joint conversation that includes everybody. Secondly, if it’s all about your identity, almost by definition, nobody else can understand it as well as you, so your answers are always going to be right. And again that can’t be the basis on which you can construct a policy. So I think there’s almost a bigger problem which is that politics has become very narrowly personal and very narrowly about these kind of identity issues”.

More recently on February 26th, US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin came to UCLA to give the Arnold C. Harberger Lecture. I attended the lecture that afternoon after the Generation interviewed him. During the lecture, protestors were extremely disrespectful and hissed at Mnuchin as he was speaking. He attempted to laugh off this hissing, and even addressed a protestor directly about why he was hissing, to which the protester replied “I think you’re full of shit!”. These protests made Mnuchin very hostile, flustered, and essentially prevented him from discussing what he came here to discuss, which was United States economic policy and international sanctions. This is an excellent example of Dr. Zakaria’s discussion of identity politics and how this type of politics can prevent academic discourse. These students were only reflecting on their own personal identity as people who feel as though they have been harmed by the Trump administration, and failed to allow for a productive academic discussion. You may not agree with Mnuchin’s policy or business decisions, but shutting down his ideas and not allowing them to be heard only further polarizes people and does not fight “bad ideas” with “good ideas” as Dr. Zakaria advocates academic discussion should do.

Given that that the U.S was recently downgraded from a “full-democracy” to a “flawed-democracy” by The Economist’s Intelligence Unit, Zakaria also discussed the concept of an illiberal democracy as described in his book “The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad.” A liberal democracy is one that we find in places such as the United States, where there is protection of individual liberties from the majority and the government and popular participation in democratic processes. An illiberal democracy is one that keeps its democratic processes but loses its individual liberties and checks and balances. Dr. Zakaria finds this lose of liberal democracy in the United States problematic on “two levels”, for Americans and non-Americans alike. Using disenfranchisement of African American voters as an example to illustrate how this is a problem for citizens, Zakaria stated:

“We are the only democracy that I know of, I haven’t done an extensive study, but certainly the only advanced democracy I can think of where there are systematic efforts to disenfranchise people, to ensure that certain parts of the public don’t vote. You can see this happening today as the supreme court relaxed it’s interpretation of the Voting Rights Act. A whole series of states put in place laws that had only one purpose, which was to make it harder for certain groups of people, primarily African Americans to vote. That’s a pretty big flaw to be living with in a democracy”.

The Supreme Court Case Zakaria is referring to, Shelby County v. Holder (2013), struck down sections 4b and 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which required states to get preclearance from the federal government before changing their voting practices and declared which states must obtain this preclearance based on analysis of past discrimination. Since the decision, states such as Texas and North Carolina among others have enacted Voter ID laws and gerrymandered districts to disadvantage minority voters.

Zakaria then discussed how the downgrade of American democracy is damaging on an international level:

“When you look at violations of democratic rights, of civil rights, of human rights around the world, over the last 25 years certainly, the United States has been a pretty consistent and strong voice opposing. It didn’t always do as much as it could have but this is one thing I think Americans can take a great deal of pride in that the United States was always a voice cataloging these issues and highlighting them”.

This is in stark contrast to what Zakaria sees happening now.

“Today we have a completely different atmosphere. Almost every authoritarian ruler in the world today that has in some way attacked, imprisoned, bankrupted or punished members of the media in his own country has cited Donald Trump’s use of the word ‘fake news’… So here we have our situation where the United States is becoming a role model for an illiberal democracy rather than for democracy, human rights, liberty, and the free expression of ideas. I cannot think of a time in recent memory when you have had dictators around the world using the United States as an example to justify its practices.”

Leaders in Syria, Cambodia, Libya, and China have all used Trump’s term of “fake news” to deny or downplay atrocities in their country or silence political opposition. Rhetoric from leaders of the United States has global influence, and this can either be used to promote democracy or to weaken it. As Dr. Zakaria points out, it currently appears to be doing the latter.

Journalism:

The students from Daniel Pearl Memorial High School asked Dr. Zakaria about the atmosphere when covering stories at the White House during the presidency of Donald Trump. While he does acknowledge that “it’s a great time to be a journalist because the public is fascinated by the news”, he finds covering the White House difficult for two reasons. “One of which is a lot of the interest frankly is in the circus of what is going on in Washington”. He goes on to compare now with what it was like shortly following the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center or the collapse of the Soviet Union. Back then, people were concerned about policy and why these events were happened, but “what now we are witnessing is the fascination with the circus of the Trump administration and Trump personally”,

The second reason Zakaria finds it frustrating to cover the White House is because of the hostility towards the press coming from the White House.

“You are living, working in a circumstance where the President of the United States and the administration are systematically and actively hostile to the press, hacking it, threatening legal punishments, non legal punishments, demeaning it, and that’s a very weird atmosphere to live in.”

As discussed earlier, the term “fake news” has spread to leaders around the globe thanks to Trump’s. In January, President Trump handed out “Fake News Awards” to organizations who had given him unfavorable coverage. Dr. Zakaria says these attacks on the press can be especially dispiriting because the United States is meant to be one of the freest countries in the world and the oldest constitutional democracy. He also postulates on what this attitude may mean for the future of democracy in America:

“You think to yourself it’s fine, the institutions are strong but you know, they are only strong until they collapse, until they get weak. I’ve seen that happen in other countries. America is not somehow you know endowed by the creator with some kind of magic force field that will prevent that so that’s the worrying part about this”.

To conclude the interview, I asked Dr. Zakaria what advice he had for novice international affairs journalists such as ourselves. He emphasized that the challenge of writing about foreign places and people in the United States is making Americans care about it. Zakaria elaborates:

“I think we have a huge problem in this country in that we are a vast continent surrounded by two benign neighbors and two vast oceans and so it’s easy to think that the world doesn’t affect the United States and that you can imagine an America First or America Alone agenda, but the reality is that we are deeply interconnected with the world, as we should be.”

Yet Zakaria thinks this problem can be overcome by making the issues more salient to readers. As journalists, he believes we need to show this connection and explain why these problems are important to an American audience. While broader issues such as ethnic rivalry or sectarianism often catch people’s attention, sometimes just “telling a great human story” allows people the opportunity to relate. He concluded, “just recognizing those people out there who look different, and sound different, and worship different gods, you know, there’s often an element of common humanity that we forget.”

Dr. Zakaria was incredibly articulate and a pleasure to speak with. I was both impressed and grateful that he took the time answer all of our questions thoughtfully and thoroughly despite the fact he usually works with higher profile individuals, including presidents and prime ministers. His comments and ideas on immigration, democracy, and journalism come from years of experience as a journalist, and this experience showed. Many thanks to him for taking the time to sit down and talk with us.

An interview with Fareed Zakaria was last modified: March 28th, 2018 by Andrea Zachrich

When film producer Harvey Weinstein was accused by dozens of women last November of sexual assault and predatory behavior, an outpouring of comparable claims and allegations arose against other high-profile men, subsequently launching the #MeToo movement. American social activist Tarana Burke, who is credited with the original hashtag, states that the goal of the movement is to let victims of sexual assault and harassment know that their experiences are not uncommon and thus they should not be shamed into remaining silent about them. After My Name is Earl actress Alyssa Milano tweeted the hashtag, the movement gained popularity and female movie stars such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Uma Thurman, and Viola Davis all expressed sympathy or shared stories of sexual exploitation. Even Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Claire McCaskill of Missouri joined in and tweeted about the movement. Women and men of all backgrounds in America have expressed support.

Conversely, the #MeToo movement has recently experienced backlash from across the Atlantic in France, where a public letter signed by over 100 prominent French women, including actress Catherine Deneuve, have criticized the movement’s “puritanism” and its claim to “promote the liberation and protection of women” when actually “enslave[ing] them to…eternal victim[hood] and reduc[ing] them to defenseless preys.” While criticism from other women, who appear as though they should be natural allies, may shock at first glance, the disagreement over proper sexual norms between French women and their American counterparts comes as no surprise when accounting for the cultural differences regarding sex and gender between the two nations. Given France’s more progressive history of gender equality as well as a proud tradition of secularism amongst its citizens, the more accepting attitude of sexual advances and unwanted intimacy expressed by Deneuve and others is, upon closer inspection, not so unexpected after all. One of the letter’s chief criticisms of #MeToo was that although the movement claims to empower women by shielding them from unwanted sexual advances, by “demand[ing]” protection, its supporters are instead suggesting that women lack the individual agency and ability to speak up for–and defend–themselves without help. This distinction between American supporters and French doubters regarding the rights and abilities of women can be traced to the countries’ differing histories on the subject.

By multiple metrics and measurements, France has achieved higher levels of gender equality than the United States. For instance, the French parliament is currently 38.6% female, with women holding 233 out of a total of 577 seats. In contrast, 21% of U.S Senators and only 19.1% of U.S Representatives are female, with women holding 106 out of 535 total seats. Additionally, while France appointed a female Prime Minister in 1991, the U.S has yet to elect a woman to its highest office, and only in the most recent 2016 election was Hillary Clinton named the first female major party presidential nominee in American history. This seemingly trivial discrepancy among representation in government should not be dismissed out of hand. Women in France may very well feel as if they have more political power because their representation in Parliament is significantly higher and because they have seen women occupy the highest offices of government.

In addition to political representation, women in France also retain a number of cultural and workplace advantages that their American counterparts lack. First, France permits up to four months of paid maternity leave, while the U.S. only allows for up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave. Furthermore, French women are allowed unrestricted access to abortion throughout the first trimester of pregnancy. In contrast, in the U.S., states are allowed to make their own decisions on abortion access so long as the regulations do not cause “undue interference.” This wording has been interpreted broadly and many states have implemented mandatory waiting periods, state-mandated counseling, and numerous other roadblocks to delay and impede access to abortion. Women’s rights have also been one of the central focuses of French President Emmanuel Macron’s campaign and presidency. The French government even pressures the media to refrain from posting sexist or demeaning images of women. Finally, the Global Gender Gap Index which measures gender inequality across economic, political, educational, and health-based criteria ranked France 12th in the world in 2018 while the U.S ranked 49th–between Bangladesh and Zimbabwe.

These significant differences in gender equality between France and the U.S. demonstrate two fundamentally unique female experiences which can help explain the backlash to the #MeToo movement expressed by Deneuve and others. In a country where women are nearly equally represented in their government, that has laws and regulations seeking to level the playing-field in the workplace, and that maintains high female educational and economic achievement, women may feel as though there is less of a disparity of power when men make unwanted sexual advances. French women would thus perceive an advance as flirtation between equals and therefore feel as though they have the agency to either continue or put a stop to such actions. In comparison, American women may feel uncomfortable with similar types of advances due to a greater power imbalance between men and women in society. Such imbalance would likely lead to women feeling as though they lack the ability to speak up about how they feel, especially if sexual advances are unwelcome. The French letter’s critique of American women seeking to be “protected” and maintain “eternal” victim status may stem from these cultural divide. Understandably, French women–coming from a culture that consistently affirms their belief of themselves as equals to men–will have a different perspective from their American counterparts, who have grown up under a political, economic, and educational imbalance that undoubtedly seeps into their sexual and romantic lives.

In addition to a demonstrable difference in gender equality between France and the United States, the variation of the role and importance of religion also helps shape distinct sexual attitudes amongst citizens of these respective nations. For instance, a Pew Research study from 2015 found that 53% of Americans say that religion is “very important” in their lives. In contrast, only 14% of French adults said the same. Moreover, the U.S is an outlier among wealthy, Western countries when it comes to the importance of religion. 21% of the populations of both Germany and the United Kingdom say that religion is “very important” in their lives, and other developed nations such as Australia and Canada also came in well below the U.S. at 18% and 27% respectively. This disparity unquestionably creates divergent societal understandings of sex.

One manifestation of this discrepancy in religious attitudes can be found in the differences between French and American sexual education programs in schools. In an analysis of sex-ed programs in the U.S., France, and several other Western nations, author Kelly Bell noted that as a result of its religious citizenry, the U.S. views sex in more “puritanical” and “moral” terms as opposed to the “open, matter-of-fact attitudes” found in the other countries studied. This perspective naturally has led to lobbying by churches and religious groups across the U.S. on behalf of abstinence-only programs, fearing that a more comprehensive education in schools will lead to promiscuity (although this fear has been proven to be false). The result is that the American school system is failing to give teens an understanding that sex and sexuality are a “normal and positive part of human development,” an understanding that sex-ed programs in Western Europe reaffirm. Again, the connection between these differences and the views expressed in the letter is clear. When there is a tendency to see sexual advances and activity as taboo due to poor sexual education, the reaction to such experiences when unwanted will unquestionably be harsher than if they were viewed as a normal and natural experience.

Another cultural difference between the two countries can be found in interpretations of flirting. Alex Giami–co-author of a study on sexuality in France and the U.S–found that French women on the whole do not view “‘flirtation and seduction and romance as a direct sexual approach, and that flirtation does not necessarily lead to sexual intercourse.” In other words, “the language of seduction is not an explicit language of sex.” This understanding differs dramatically from American attitudes which tend to view flirtation and seduction almost exclusively as sexual advances. When flirting is recognized as separate from sex, the notion that men should be “disciplined” for such actions and placed in the “same category as sex offenders” would seem troubling and puritanical.

If the disagreement between French and American women over the #MeToo movement surprised some, it shouldn’t have. As a result of a more progressive history of gender equality, the female experience in Nice is fundamentally different from that of New York. Furthermore, the variation of the importance of religion between these countries creates two profoundly different understandings of sexual activity and flirtation. Yet cultural disagreement is not unique to France and America. Instead, the French letter and the American reaction to it represent a failure of cultural relativism: The idea that one’s actions and opinions should be judged by their own culture standards rather than someone else’s. Such instances are not unique. Supporters of the movement in both countries are failing to recognize that there are clear cultural differences that led to this disagreement. They are thus making judgements and assumptions based on their own morals and standards. This misunderstanding serves as an important reminder that, given the array of cultural variation found in every corner of the globe, social movements are not always exportable, however beneficial they may be to their country of origin.

#MeToo Movement: A Comparison of French and American Gender Equality and Secularism was last modified: March 8th, 2018 by Andrea Zachrich

Iraqi Kurdistan and Catalonia have many similarities. Both heldindependencereferendums within a week of each other earlier last year. Additionally, they are both fairly autonomous regions in confederation with larger national governments – Iraq and Spain, respectively – and consist of an ethnic minority geographically grouped in their historic homeland. Yet, however comparable these regions appear, there is one major differentiating factor: The Kurds need their own country; the Catalans do not. In the absence of independence, the Kurds will remain politically disenfranchised, continue to have their culture banned, and will remain in harm’s way as a result of oppressive and often violent rule from their adopted countries. In contrast, absent autonomy, the Catalans will still enjoy great political freedom, retain the ability to openly celebrate their culture, and be significantly aided by Spain’s membership in the EU. It is an ironic misfortune that the Kurds, a people with an extensive history of suffering at the hands of their host nations and a future similarly bleak, find independence impossible, while the wealthy Catalans seek a plausible independence from a non-oppressive state willing to compromise on their demands. An independent Kurdistan will only be possible if the region works on diversifying the economy, democratizing the government, and gaining the support of the international economy.

In order to gain political and social freedom comparable to what the Catalans currently enjoy, the Kurds need their own nation. The Kurds are currentlythe largest ethnic group in the world without a formal homeland and are spread across four countries: Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. They have their own language and culture, and do not identify as Arab or Persian, alienating them from the ethnic majority in each of the states they live in. While Kurds in Iraq have much more autonomy and freedom than Kurds in other countries, such as being allowed a fairly autonomous government, no Kurds have ever enjoyed equal rights in their adopted countries.For example, Syrian Kurds are denied citizenship, and Turkish Kurds are banned from speaking their language, using traditional names, and have been relabeled “Mountain Turks” by the government in an effort to erase their historically separate identity. Additionally, Iraqi Kurds have had numerous atrocities committed against them, most infamously when Saddam Hussein killed over 50,000 Kurds in the late 1980’s using chemical weapons and targeted shootings in an attempted genocide. With the current war against ISIS, Erdogan’s fear of a Turkish Kurd revolt, and the tenuous power Syria’s President Assad holds, this treatment of the Kurds is unlikely to improve if they do not have a nation of their own.

Starting in January, Turkey began a military offensive into Syria called the Olive Branch Campaign. The goal of this campaign is to drive the YPG out of Afrin, a group Turkey considers a terrorist organization but the US and many other UN member states do not. So far, this campaign has reportedly killed around 25 civilians and displaced thousands more. There are also allegations of war crimes, including Turkish soldiers firing their weapons indiscriminately at Kurdish civilians, and one particularly horrifying instance where Turkish-backed fighters mutilated the breasts of a female Kurdish fighter, posed for selfies with her corpse, and filmed the entire incident. Turkish officials justify this offensive as a way to secure their border against Kurdish “terrorists”. The US and other Western powers such as France have urged the de-escalation of the offensive, and the US even stated that they would not withdraw troops from one of the cities, Manbij, that Turkey wishes to attack, potentially bringing the two NATO allies into direct conflict. But, no Western power has seriously attempted to force Turkey to cease this offensive. As gruesome and objectionable as these actions by Turkey are, there may be a silver lining for the Kurds. Under internationallaw, secession is mainly used as a last resort when people have been oppressed by the government they live under. There is already an argument to be made that the Kurds have been oppressed by each of the nations they live in, but this offensive by Turkey and highly publicized war crimes only strengthens the Kurdish justification for an independent state under international law.

In contrast to the Kurds’ situation in the Middle East, the Catalans not only enjoy great political and cultural freedom but are also guaranteed safety in their homeland. While it is true that Catalonian independence activists were executed under the regime of Francisco Franco in the 1940’s, it never amounted to the systematic atrocities committed against the Kurds’ under Hussein’s regime. Since Franco’s death, the region has been largely autonomous and has its own parliament and police force. Catalonia also has significant power in the national government of Spain as its representatives total nearly one-seventh of the total number of representatives in the Congress of Deputies, Spain’s National Legislature. Catalonia also gains significant advantages from Spain’s status as a member of the European Union due to their use of the Euro and access to the single market. Additionally, Catalonia owes 52 billion euros to the Spanish Government due to a program created in 2012 that loaned cash to regions who were not able to borrow money after the financial crisis. In comparison to the Kurds, Catalans are not persecuted for speaking their language or celebrating their culture; regional TV and news stations are in Catalan. While the region does hold valid complaints about the taxation policies of the national government – Catalonia currently pays10 billion euros more in taxes annually to the national government than they receive back – Madrid has said that they are open to negotiations regarding this issue. Such accommodation is impossible to imagine from Iraq, Turkey, or Syria. Declaring independence is an unnecessary and polarizing step for a people who are already largely autonomous, reap many benefits from being a part of Spain, and whose national government is willing to negotiate on their main grievance. While it is true that the Spanish government did take control of Catalonia shortly following the independence referendum, Spain did allow new elections for the Catalonian parliament within 3 months. The Catalans can win the concessions they want without full independence.

The unfortunate irony of these two situations is that an independent Catalonia is economically viable while an independent Kurdistan would not be. Kurdistan’s main resource are its oil fields, whichIraq violently seized shortly following the referendum, and Kurdistan lacks the military power to gain back these oil fields. Turkey, Kurdistan’s main importer of oil, hasthreatened to stop buying their oil or even invade the region over fears of an uprising in Turkey. More so, the United States refuses to intervene on the Kurds’ behalf because they rely on their allies, Turkey and Iraq, in the war against ISIS. Syrian Kurds under attack in Turkey’s Operation Olive Branch have also seen little international support. Western powers have condemned the invasion but have undertaken no concrete actions to resolve the attack or stop Turkey. This leaves the Kurds with limited negotiating power in Baghdad. Since gaining semi-autonomy in 2006, the Iraqi Kurds have built two international airports and improved the region’s infrastructure, but the government is essentially an oligarchy run by the family and political party of recently resigned President Massoud Barzani. Barzani’s focus on building party loyalty has left other parts of the economy, such as agriculture and manufacturing, largely neglected. Left with little industry, the seizure of their main source of income, a weak military, and a lack of international support, an independent Kurdish state is not currently economically or politically viable.

In contrast, Catalonia has the economic strength necessary to support an independent state. Catalonia is one of Spain’s richest and most industrialized regions as a result of a booming tourism and manufacturing sector that garners massive amounts of revenue and creates thousands of jobs in the region. While it is true that Catalonia’s admittance into the EU could bevetoed by Spain, thus losing their access to the single market, an independent Catalonia would theoretically have an extra 10 billion dollars per year that they would no longer pay in taxes to Madrid, which could be used to pay for access to the single market. Catalonia may even be able to continue to use the euro without the EU’s consent in the same way that Kosovo or Montenegro do, although it would lack access to the central bank. Catalonia could exploit its existing industries, large tourism revenues, and the financial surplus created from not having to pay taxes to Madrid in order to finance a newly independent nation.

In order to experience social and political freedom similar to the Catalans, the Kurds need their own nation. It is a terrible irony that an independent Iraqi Kurdistan is not currently economically or politically sustainable but an independent Catalonia would be. The US-backed Kurdish fighters have proved themselves strong allies in a fight against ISIS, and the US and other Western powers should support their campaign for independence. In addition, in order for Kurdistan to achieve the economic power to win their independence from Iraq, the region must gain the military power to win back their oil fields. While it is currently unlikely that the US would be willing to aid the Kurdistan military because they fear a resurgence of ISIS in this region and do not wish to anger Iraq, other countries with less of a stake in the region may be willing to step in. Even if the US does not provide military support, the country still may still be able to pressure the Iraqi government into some sort of deal regarding the oil fields. The region must also strive for a more democratic government by purging their current oligarchic regime and they must improve and strengthen their infrastructure. Those in connection with Barzani should step down and new elections should be held and new officials appointed. The government could possibly request loans from other countries with the purpose of improving agriculture, manufacturing, and taking advantage of their central location to trade. Lastly, Kurdistan must attain the support of the international community and powerful countries, such as the United States, who would recognize their independence, provide economic assistance, and assist and support them in negotiations. The Kurds need their own state in order to prevent the kind of persecution that has plagued their people throughout much of modern history. This state is a possibility in the future, but the Kurds have a long road ahead. They need both internal reforms and external support before this independent state could become a reality.

The Irony of the Economic and Political Viability of Iraqi Kurdistan and Catalonia’s Independence was last modified: February 8th, 2018 by Andrea Zachrich